


Weekends

by RedLetterGirl



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Divorce, Drama, F/F, References to Cheating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-26
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-16 05:13:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/858187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedLetterGirl/pseuds/RedLetterGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post season 9 finale. A strange turn of events forces both Callie and Arizona to open up to each other and let go of the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stubborn Avoidance

Mondays, Wednesdays, and every other weekend, that was the schedule they agreed to. Arizona had been holding fast to it for two months now, even on the days when she wasn’t blinded by resentment or regret, on the days when she felt stubborn enough to just show up to Callie’s unannounced and declare that she had a right to see Sofia whenever she felt like. She told herself that was the reason, but that wasn’t true. Callie had been really good about respecting Arizona as a mother to their daughter. It was one of the first things she said that day, the morning after everything fell apart.

She’d come over, calm and logical, with a plan. That was what she did in these situations and it always bugged the hell out of Arizona. There Arizona was groggy from a sleepless night of processing, and drinking, and processing, and more drinking. Callie, who’d slept at a hotel that night came over looking rested and angelic the next morning. She didn’t even say hello, she didn’t say much of anything really. She just pulled a calendar out of her purse and announced that SHE made a schedule for them and SHE wanted to make sure Arizona knew she still respected her as a parent. Then she said something about them working the rest of it out later.

On days when she was feeling resentful she wanted to burn the damn schedule and any other thing Callie decided was right for them as a couple, or a family, or whatever the hell they were now. On days when she felt regretful, she’d spend most of the day beating herself up about how badly she’d screwed things up then she’d bury herself in work and force it out of her mind. On stubborn days, days like today, she was pretty much impossible.

Callie had her usual way of dealing with things, complete avoidance, which she was an expert in. No matter what Arizona said Callie would only ever respond when the subject was work or Sofia. She especially hated the perky and oblivious way Arizona approached her sometimes, as if nothing at all had happened between them and they were just two besties sharing custody of a toddler. So when she arrived at the hospital day care today to pick up Sofia, as per the schedule, and found Arizona there playing peek-a-boo, it took all her strength to pretend she wasn’t completely irritated.

Arizona looked up saw Callie, and couldn’t help feeling like she was still her wife, like she had every right to expect Callie to be there as her wife, even if she cheated. So what! She just wanted to see her, well that wasn’t exactly it, she…it’d been months; she wanted to do more than see her. Callie was her wife after all and she really didn’t see why she should feel guilty about wanting to be with her wife.

“Hey, how’s it going?” She enquired in this sort of sing-song voice, the way she always did before.

All Callie saw was Arizona’s complete refusal to accept the reality that they were separated and even though Callie herself wasn’t sure what that meant she knew for sure it didn’t mean chit-chat and family get-togethers.

“Is Sofia okay, did I miss a page?” Callie responded, once again amazing Arizona with the fortitude of her stubborn resolve.

“She’s fine, I just had some free time, I thought I’d come down and say hi.”

Callie didn’t respond so much as just roll her eyes and that was all the communication Arizona needed. She knew what it meant, just like Callie knew what this random visit from Arizona meant. Callie was silently telling Arizona she could say hi when the schedule permitted her to, and Arizona was pretty much telling Callie to shove the schedule up her ass.

Callie breathed an obvious sigh of frustration then ran a hand over the soft curl of hair that had escaped her ponytail and fell just to the side of her forehead.

“Well, I’m done for the day, so I can take her now.”

She hesitated a bit, observing Arizona as she held their daughter. She bit down on her bottom lip and shoved back the urge to say what was on her mind. She couldn’t speak around her, even when she wanted to, even when she only intended to attempt a civil conversation, all her thoughts got blurred up by images of another woman touching her wife and then she just felt angry all over again. So, for the sake of civility and sanity, she was forcing herself to stick to work and Sofia.

She stepped forward and extended her arms so that Arizona could place Sofia in them.

But, Arizona was having a stubborn day, and nothing ever seemed to go as planned when Arizona was feeling particularly disruptive

“Do you have plans for dinner?” She asked while getting up, making sure to step just slightly into Callie’s well measured space cushion.

“Cause, I was thinking we could do dinner. I could cook and I don’t know, I’m sure you’re tired of hotel food, and we should talk. So, let’s talk over dinner.”

Callie couldn’t take the lack of space. She closed her eyes and turned her back. She knew Arizona didn’t want to talk about anything important. The one time she let Arizona come over to her hotel suite they ended up sleeping together and then fighting the next morning.

“I’ll uh, I’ll give you a minute and you can text me when you’re done.”

Arizona leaned up against a bookcase to help relieve some of the strain from holding Sofia on her hip. She tried not think about the fact that she used to be able to do this with little effort at all. She watched in bewildered irritation as Callie started to leave.

“No!” she finally shouted knowing fully well that she sounded about as mature as Sofia throwing a temper tantrum at breakfast.

“You can text me when you’re done?” she mocked. “What the hell does that even mean?”

Callie pivoted on her right foot and stared Arizona down, revealing what was now a rather contemptuous facial expression. She was on the verge of saying something, but then shook her head in adamant refusal.

Arizona stepped closer again and handed Sofia over, her hand lingering just long enough to make contact with Callie’s. The contact sent a shiver through her, that she didn’t recognize. There was the obvious romantic lingering, but also a sort of chill. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was and even if she could she was too blinded by her exhaustion with Callie’s refusal to even acknowledge her to truly make an attempt at caring.

She crossed her arms and sighed once more.

“She is my daughter, you are my wife, this is my family” Arizona reached forward and brushed Callie’s cheek. “I’m never going to be done.”

 

It all sounded very romantic and convincing, but Callie couldn’t help remembering another day when Arizona called her and left a ten minute rant complaining about everything and anything from the fact that people in the hospital had taken Callie’s side, to the fact that she couldn’t get the coffee maker to work and somehow all of it was Callie’s fault. She also couldn’t shake the flashback to that day two weeks ago when Arizona showed up with her date for the evening and proceeded to prance around the hospital with her as if it was no big deal at all.

She tried to tell herself it was PTSD; that’s what the therapist said, but they hadn’t gone in over a month and besides that it all sounded like a bunch of bull to Callie. Was it really supposed to be that easy? Arizona cheated on her, but she gets carte-blanche because of PTSD. Arizona treated her like crap for months and that was okay because, well, PTSD. Arizona had a complete disregard for her own personal struggles and losses, but PTSD.

She shoved Arizona’s hand away.

“I’m not doing this here. Later.” Her voice came across bitter and detached. That was it, the chill Arizona felt earlier, it was complete detachment.

Even though she knew she should back off, even though everything in her said to give it a rest. Her desire for control took over and she just had to have the last word.

“Later like tomorrow, or later like never?”

Callie tucked Sofia’s head against her chest and simply walked away. She was too exhausted to fight, especially when she knew she couldn’t win.

* * *

 

Arizona busied herself with work as a way to take her mind off of the disaster at daycare. She couldn’t keep thinking about things that were beyond her control because it made her feel powerless and she tended to act recklessly whenever she felt like that, or at least that’s how the therapist had explained it. She looked down at her hands dangling fingers down in the scrub sink. Someone knocked the water on for her and she looked up to see who it was.

“So,” Owen proclaimed in lieu of an introduction. “Dallas? How’s that going to work?”

Arizona seemed beyond perplexed, she couldn’t even tell if he was talking about the city or the TV show.

“How’s what gonna work?”

Owen proceeded without thinking “Callie in Dallas, you…” then it hit him that the look on Arizona’s face meant she had no idea what he was going on about. He silenced himself and tried to change the subject.

“I uh, saw that the patient is allergic to pro…” but it was useless, the wheels were already turning in Arizona’s head.

She shook her hands dry and slapped on her gloves then threw her hands up in front of her before shoving out of the room. She couldn’t think about it she reminded herself. She had to focus on work. Nothing good would come of obsessing over…forget it, today was not the day for reasoned resolve. She turned on her heal and marched back into the hallway to chase down Owen.

“Dr. Hunt!” she called out to the back of his head.

“Did you say Callie was moving to Dallas?”

Owen froze, then turned around panicked and in search of the quickest way out.

“Yeah, you know I am actually running late for a meeting can I get back to you?” he stammered.

“Uh, no” Arizona quickly shot him down. “You just said my wife is moving out of state, that’s what you said right?” Arizona’s voice came across icy and threatening, but Owen wasn’t shaken by that

“No.” he answered furrowing his brow. “I didn’t. What I said was Callie would be in Dallas and clearly I’ve already said too much.”

With that Owen turned back around and proceeded down the hall with a quickness.

A standard appy, she could be in and out in twenty minutes flat. She cursed the fact that thanks to Owen’s big mouth she now had to scrub all over again. It didn’t skip her mind that her entire demeanor had changed. Before she’d been looking forward to the surgery and had every intention of taking her time. Now, she was just wondering if she could get her team to put a rush on it so that she could get the hell out of there in time to give Callie a piece of her mind.

* * *

 

She stood outside the hotel room door banging intermittently between twenty to thirty second pauses. The longer she waited, the angrier she grew and the less rational her thoughts became. She took out her phone and called, no one answered, and she thought typical. Of course Callie wouldn’t ever answer her phone; she never answered the phone when it mattered. She called again and it went to voicemail, again. Screw it, Arizona thought. If Callie wanted to be immature and play childish games, Arizona had every right to give her a piece of her mind. She waited for the beep and convinced herself that she was simply going to leave a well-reasoned and level headed message expressing her understandable frustration. But instead this happened:

“Um, Callie…I just got some shocking news from Owen Hunt of all people. Apparently you are, what, moving to Dallas which I don’t really understand how you can do that without talking it over with me first.  I uh, came over to talk about it, but you’re not answering the damn door and now you’re not answering the damn phone…”

Her voice trailed off and she looked around to see that a hotel bellman with rather distinguishing cheekbones was busy pretending to wait for an elevator and staring at her as if she’d lost her mind. Maybe she had.

“So, where THE HELL ARE YOU? I mean, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry. But damn it this is crazy. Just I NEED you to call me. I’m…”

She heard a beep on the other end and the receiver cut off: Message box full.

And then she heard the sound of the elevator ding, she saw them step off. THEM. Callie had a stack of folders in one hand and Sofia’s tiny little left hand in the other. On the other side of her daughter there was a man in a suite holding Sofia’s other hand and swinging it along as if she were a rag doll. The minute Callie looked up and saw Arizona standing there looking defiant and poised for a fight, her mouth fell open. Arizona hadn’t straightened her hair in a while and it fell back into its natural curl which always made her look irresistible to Callie, but this, this was beyond anything Arizona had ever done before and despite herself, Callie was blown away by immediate rage.

“What the hell Arizona?”

The man standing next to Sofia and Callie seemed shocked by her choice of words. When Arizona didn’t answer Callie just repeated herself

“What the hell are you doing?”

Arizona didn’t really care for explanations at this point.

“If, you’d answer the phone you really wouldn’t have to ask stupid questions. Who the hell is this, and what is he doing with my daughter?”

The look on Arizona’s face frightened Callie’s guest and he immediately let go of Sofia’s hand.

“Arizona, this is Dr. Adam Fray, he’s the lead orthopedic specialist at DCH.”

“Dallas Central Hospital” Adam clarified while extending his hand to greet Arizona who simply looked at the hand before her and shook her head in disgust before looking away.

Callie expected nothing less. “Dr. Fray,” she continued, “this is Dr. Arizona Robbins. She’s the senior pediatric attending at Grey Sloan.”

Adam looked between the two of them and immediately connected the dots. He’d read up on the Grey Sloan doctors and while none of the articles mentioned Callie as Arizona’s wife, it was pretty damn obvious with the tension between them.

“I’ll be in the lobby” he announced to the interest of no one but himself.

As soon as their interloper was out of ear shot Arizona lit up again, this time with a sense of righteous indignation.

“So, when exactly were you going to tell me about Dallas? Or is it just now that you’ve found someone to sleep with…”

Callie was shocked at the accusation, not that Arizona made it, but that she didn’t seem to care that Sofia was standing right there.

“You know what Arizona, Dr. Fray isn’t my type for a number of reasons the most important being that he’s married! Which I’m sure you didn’t notice since wedding rings and vows tend to skip your mind sometimes.”

Saying hurtful things always left Callie’s stomach in knots and she immediately felt like apologizing, but pride got in the way. Instead she took a deep breath and tried, in her own way, to reassure Arizona.

“Dr. Fray came down to convince me to take the job in Dallas, that’s all.” Then, with a breathy sigh she admitted something she’d been denying for far too long “being around you hurts too much.”


	2. Fighting Madness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things with Arizona put Callie in a tough spot emotionally

You wake up groggy, then you try to plant your feet on the ground, but you realize it’s just the one foot this time and you can’t get up yet. You have to reach for your prosthetic, or a cane. Then, you remember that this is going to be every morning for you for the rest of your life. You’re angry; you feel defeated. You want the whole world to feel just as defeated as you do, if not more, usually more.

Arizona had been thrown into a medical emergency the minute she stepped into the hospital. One of her long term patients went into cardiac arrest suddenly and they’d rushed her into the OR. She was stable now, but Arizona had spent every hour since the morning digging through all the relevant medical information trying to figure out what went wrong. She’d been so busy flipping through journals at lunch that she hardly noticed when Callie sat down across from her.

“Sorry about yesterday” Callie declared with a mix of sincerity and nervousness that made Arizona feel self-aware.

How dare Callie try to win the upper hand by being the bigger person. Maybe that was an irrational thought, but Arizona felt it was justified. She knew she’d been out of hand the other day and didn’t have the patience to sit through Callie’s back-door attempt at rubbing it in her face.

“I have a critical patient that I’m trying to focus on right now, do you think you could find a more appropriate time to discuss our personal life.”

PTSD, Callie reminded herself.

“I should have told you about Dallas, I guess I didn’t know how.”

Arizona dropped the magazine she’d been flipping through onto the table in front of them. She looked up at Callie and felt an unspeakable rage that she couldn’t explain or even attempt to understand. How was it that just the other day she was desperate to be close to Callie, but today she just felt like burning down every single bridge they had left to each other.

“Well, just add it to the list of all the other things you should have done but didn’t.”

Callie got up in a hurry after that, and something about the swiftness of her movements caught Cristina’s eye. Of course Dr. Yang didn’t feel the urge to go investigate, but Cristina’s curious expression aroused Meredith’s interest and she turned to see what Cristina was staring at. She leaned in just in time to catch the tail end of Arizona’s soft-spoken vitriol.

“Let me guess” Arizona continued without looking up from her magazine this time, “you give up right? Well, you’re good at that.”

Without turning around Callie simply sighed in a way that she’d grown accustom to. “It’s Wednesday, don’t forget to pick up Sofia”.

As Callie walked off Arizona tried to stifle the sense of satisfaction growing inside of her. It made her feel inhumane to be fulfilled in her ability to cause Callie pain. She thought maybe she should apologize, but she didn’t feel sincere about it and Callie had already left anyway.

She had resolved, after her latest disaster with Arizona not to date anymore colleagues, or doctors for that matter. She was settling more and more into the fact that they just weren’t the same people anymore Even if she still loved Arizona, things were just too different now. She thought about Dallas and was beginning to accept the idea that the move would be better for both of them. Anything had to be better than the way they were going now. Callie looked at the board in front of her and was relieved she didn’t have a single pediatric case ahead of her, a rarity for an orthopedic surgeon. 

“Okay” she sighed thinking she was by herself. “Day’s almost done.”

“Hey” Callie heard a familiar voice calling out from behind her. She turned her head to see Stacey standing with her eyes fixed on the back of her shoulders.

“I’m not even going to pretend I know what any of this medical jargon means” Stacey laughed while making a confused hand motion in the general direction of the board.

“Don’t” Callie snorted, “you’ll only give yourself a headache.”

At first, Callie was happy to see a friendly face, but then she remembered that Stacey was her lawyer, the lawyer she consulted after Arizona first threw out the D word. She’d gotten angry and consulted an attorney in an attempt to call Arizona’s bluff.

“I’m glad I found you.” Stacey smiled. She handed Callie a mildly thick stack of papers.

Callie thumbed through the papers, but quickly grew disinterested as soon as she determined that it was pointless trying to parse through all the legalese.

“Okay, see this is legal jargon” she declared handing the papers back to Stacey. “That’s your area of expertise.”

Stacey couldn’t help laughing at the way Callie flipped her words around so quickly.

“So, basically your spouse has filed for custody of Sofia and she’s also filed a petition to keep you from leaving the state until the matter of custody has been resolved.”

Callie didn’t think she could feel any more defeated than she already did, yet Arizona seemed to find a way to dig the knife in even deeper; she always did. Callie turned to look at Stacey, they were around the same age and Callie imagined, if they’d gone to the same schools or traveled in the same circles they may have hit it off as friends. She had curly red hair that she’d pulled up into a bun and wore these intentionally thick black rim glasses.

“I know you told me to lay back. I know you said you wanted to work it out yourself, but this is kind of my arena. I need permission to fight for you because sitting around doing nothing while my client gets tossed around isn’t exactly my style.”

Callie nodded her understanding; she was the same way with her patients. “You’d rather tackle the problem to the ground like an angry bear?” she suggested.

Stacey nodded her confirmation and after a bit more back and forth Callie finally agreed to let her fight back.

“Alright, go be an angry bear. Just try not to leave any scratches.”

* * *

 

Arizona paged Cristina earlier in the day for a patient consult she wasn’t really surprised when she showed up later with Meredith in tow and they went on bantering about one thing or another. She was, however, shocked to the point of being startled when Meredith paused to talk to her directly.

“We don’t usually talk, so this is awkward.” Meredith started, something about what she saw in the cafeteria reminded her of her mother and she was finding it hard not to say anything at all.

“But uh, I was in both places.” She paused to measure her words. “I was in the woods with you, and I was in the OR with Callie.”

Arizona froze and her expression changed to something bitterly cold and if Meredith had squinted hard enough she might have even seen an image that looked exactly like the mad-at-the-world version of Ellis Grey she’d grown accustom to before Alzheimer’s stole her away.

“I get it, I do and I think deep down you know that as hard as she tries Callie will never completely get it. She’s not one of us.”

Meredith’s words were shocking; it wasn’t at all what Arizona was expecting. She started to nod in agreement and then Meredith said something that was so unexpected even Cristina was taken aback.

“So, let her go.” She said it rather matter-of-fact, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. “If you try to hold on, you’ll only end up hurting her more, so let her go.”

Meredith’s words were laced with the recollection of her mother trying, despite herself, to hold on to her father and to the idea of what a good wife should be and what a good mother should do. She thought about how it all ended up unraveling anyway and how by the time it was all over everyone involved had been completely destroyed emotionally. The lab tech entered the room and handed off a manila folder full of slides for Cristina, this, Meredith took as her cue to leave.

 

* * *

 

Stacey had been buzzing around town like a restless hornet the entire day. First it was the morning meeting with the Fosters; they were nice enough and were only there to go over a few power of attorney documents they’d been neglecting to update. Then her secretary Trish gave her a sticky-note with the vaguest of vague messages; it literally just said “Robbins custody” and had a phone number listed underneath. When Stacey asked what she was supposed to make of it, Trish shrugged her shoulders and went back to staring at her computer screen. She’d been through about a week of that and for Stacey it was one week too long. She made a mental note to have HR take care of it and find her someone new, and less ambivalently unaware.

It didn’t matter that Trish couldn’t conjure up the slightest memory as to what the phone call was concerning because Stacey automatically recognized the number. She’d gone to school with a contemptuous brown-noser named Kevin McAllen whose father was head of the largest law firm in the Seattle area. He was one of those guys that you couldn’t help but hate in law school because, unlike the rest of them, he hadn’t racked up a crap load of debt and he pretty much had a secured job waiting for him upon graduation. She’d muttered a soft curse at the thought of him and then crumpled the note before tossing it in her waste basket.

She didn’t have time to call, she was running late for a partner meeting; a meeting in which some old geezer who hadn’t practiced in over a decade but refused to give up his voting shares held everyone up for two hours to reminisce about the days when practicing law meant something. She got out of the meeting just in time to see Trish eating a burrito over a stack of client files. She would have been upset, except the site of someone else eating reminded her of her own hunger. She rushed out to pick something up, perhaps Chinese; she always liked Chinese food on a busy day. Then she remembered the sticky note and decided to stop in to Kevin’s office while she was out.

He hadn’t changed much since law school, except now he was balding and doing a poor job of trying to hide it.

“Oh good” Kevin greeted her. “You got my message?” He then handed her a manila folder and waved her off without a second look. Stacey rolled her eyes, but being pressed for time she decided not to engage him.

“And by the way” Kevin called out just as Stacey had her hand on the door. “You ought to start telling your client to take this seriously. It doesn’t have to get ugly.”

So, that was how Stacey found out about Arizona’s petition for custody. She could barely even stand to be in the same room with Kevin McAllen and more importantly, she hated when he smugly attempted to give her advice. He graduated at the bottom of their class, she didn’t need to hear it from that entitled dim-wit. She’d wrestled with playing back the scene in his office the entire day. She wished she’d said something sharp and witty. Relief only came at the end of the day when she met up with Callie and finally got permission to start playing offense.

She was in her office making last minute notes for briefs she wanted to file in the morning when her investigative assistant decided to let himself in. He looked a bit on edge, this usually meant he was about to deliver an impassioned speech. She watched as he sucked in one giant gulp of air, the action drew even more attention to his uniquely chiseled cheekbones.

“I have been at this for a month now, a month” he began. “To be quite honest I am losing interest because every week I come in here with a report, a video, some discarded piece of seemingly inconsequential material that is actually quite damning in the right hands. I come in here every week with gold, and you have nothing to say except _keep at it_.”

He paused just long enough to suck in more air and then started up once more without bothering to notice that Stacey herself was about to speak.

“Well, I did it this time. I freaking hit pay dirt on this lady and you are going to listen to what I have, and then you are going to tell me that you are filing a motion, or a case, or a brief, or whatever the hell because I have given you more than enough to bury her ass ten times over.”

He finally came to a full stop and ended with a giant huff and an exasperated expression.

“Lamar,” Stacey spoke up. “Have you been saving everything?”

Lamar looked up at Stacey as if to say that she’d insulted his intelligence, he didn’t bother dignifying such a question with a response.

“Bring me everything you’ve got on her tomorrow morning, organized by date and location. You’re right, it’s time we buried her ass.”


End file.
